EVIL
by Syberina5
Summary: Archival GH; complete 4/13/2010. Started in response to the NOL Blackout Challenge to move from the blackout in Penthouse 4, Harbor View Towers on 8/20/2004 on 'General Hospital’ and never posted here. Until Now. I will post the sequel, LIVE, soon.
1. Chapter 1

EVIL

Started in response to the NOL Blackout Challenge to start from the blackout in Penthouse 4, Harbor View Towers on 8/20/2004 on 'General Hospital' and never posted here. Until Now.

Part One

Poking his head out, Sonny proffered a hand and called, "Max?"

"I'm checking, sir," the boy-faced guard said with his cell phone to his ear, "so far it seems to be caused by the storm. They are getting the generators on line and securing the area."

"Good," he waved away a level of worry. "Check on Sam and the baby."

"Yes, sir," he heard Max reply as he ducked back inside. He dashed for the stairs, thinking of his wife's naked flesh in candle light, rocking beneath him as the storm caught the world on fire and pounded around them. He huffed out a breath as he turned his body—and less successfully his mind—to check on his sons' sleeping forms. They were oblivious of the storm.

He then slunk down the hall planning the first few moves, slow, smooth, and thorough. After that the needs, the rushes, the drives that made them one fiercely writhing mass for the last five years would take over and he wouldn't have to think of his moves or hers. Somehow they always just moved, as one, into something greater than themselves. Something neither could control or want to.

It just was.

Every time he touched, thought about it, it started. He couldn't wait to put his hands on her and finish it.

He opened the door to their room and found it empty. The doors to the balcony were open and the wind was wreaking havoc within the walls as well as without.

"Carly," he called. They'd made love in the rain once, on the beach. But she wasn't on the balcony, the rain beading on her body like water pearls.

"i_Carly_/i," he screamed, suddenly frantic. He looked down around the sides of the fence, up the walls of the building. Nothing.

Dashing back inside, he searched for evidence of her, called Max, started the search. She was gone. God, again he had lost her.

***

She remembered reading the fading signature on her birth certificate. Remembered thinking why was the doctor's handwriting so illegible. Then it was there. That smell pressed into her face. The same as the one Ric used. She'd gagged, cried out, fought, but in the end the result was the same. She woke up trapped, knowing that she'd been taken from her family. God help her. After what had happened last time. She didn't think she could do it again.

In the days and nights that followed the world once again was destroyed.


	2. Chapter 2

EVIL

Part Two

"I hear you've lost your wife, again."

"I want her back, you filth."

"It's your own doing if you can't keep her safe."

Sonny jumped at Lorenzo Alcazar's exposed and hairy neck. "She didn't want you. She choose her family. Me. She left you and you couldn't take it. So you break into my house and you take her. Is she on your yacht? Like before? Are you going to use her to move your drugs? Again?" He squeezed, tighter, watching the man go from struggling to pry off his hands to clawing for a piece of air.

"Maybe she left you."

Sonny threw him like trash, looked at his hands like they were dirty.

He pointed, his eyes still displaying the murder he nearly committed, silent.

Lorenzo gathered enough breath then tried to nibble further away at the man he'd lost to.

He rubbed at the bruises Sonny's hands would leave. "She chose her children. Not you. Maybe she couldn't live the way you keep her, like a prisoner. Maybe she left you, ran away just to escape."

"She wouldn't leave her children. Not with that man."

"Maybe that's how desperate you've made her."

He fought it. The swirling. Blinked, rubbed his eyes but it chased him. That oil. Black, slick, sliding into every crevasse and coating it with its greasy filth. Nothing could scrub those things clean again. They were forever tainted. And as the oil got thicker, he couldn't see around it, couldn't see Lorenzo's face.

But his voice followed, like the oil, it chased him. "It's your fault. You were never worthy of her."

So easy to believe. To give in.


	3. Chapter 3

EVIL

Part Three

Jason found him alone. Max had called.

He took Sonny back to his penthouse. Michael was upset enough about his again missing mother and Morgan did nothing but cry, sensing it somehow, knowing everyone around him was in hell.

He left Sonny on the couch, away from the wet bar in his own place. He'd get Sam, take her across the hall. Carly would hate it but it was better than Michael seeing Sonny not see anything. He couldn't find her there, and he so left to tell Max to locate her.

She slipped in from the balcony. She'd been thinking about how Carly'd gotten off her own. It would have taken a lot of equipment and a lot of luck for no one to have found or seen her. Up would have been fastest but then how did she get off the roof?

She saw Sonny sitting on the couch. He seemed tense, twitching, even though he barely moved. It was like he was listening to her, waiting for her to approach and attack.

"Sonny?"

He whipped off the couch to face her, not knowing her, suspecting her. He moved like a beast caged and stalked.

She put her hands out in front of her to reassure both of them. His eyes were wild. "Sonny, it's me." More primal and vicious then the night he'd held her hostage against Carly's betrayal. "Sam… remember?" She took a slow step toward him and he grabbed her now within hands' reach and pulled her roughly to him. Her back to his chest he held her wrists behind him and spoke in her ear with a feral grating that scraped her everywhere.

"Where are they? Who are you? What have you done?"

Panicking, Sam breathed heavily. This was not good. Then it got worse.

There was the shooting, ripping pain from her breast bone all the way down her belly. Like someone had taken a fillet knife and sliced her open for a fish. She went to instinctively reach there with her hands but they were still behind her back. She stopped the same tearing scream as her pain and called out, "Sonny, the baby." And then her hands were free.

Jason had heard the unholy sound come out of the penthouse when he was conferencing with the body guards on Sam's location. No one had seen her leave but he hadn't found her in the penthouse and was worried.

Then that sound.

Slashing through him.

Through the door he saw Sonny's hands on her, her falling to the ground, and pried Sonny off her. Grabbing her and running to the elevator, he'd left Max in charge.

Max watched Sonny watch him like an enemy. "I mean no disrespect sir, but you should take a seat."


	4. Chapter 4

EVIL

Part Four

Her head hurt. It throbbed. And her stomach felt weak. Nausea gently roiled, making her slowly, torturously miserable.

"Don't move," the voice was not familiar. She didn't think she wanted to anyway but she would to be free.

"Whatever he's paying you my husband will double it…provided he lets you live. Whether or not I do." Her throat was dry her mouth cracked with the words like dessert mud.

"I don't doubt that he would. He's ruthless man." The voice was grave but not unamused.

"No more ruthless than your employer." She desperately wanted to raise a hand to her head, but the strain on her muscles seemed too great.

"My employer?" He laughed. Her head rolled again.

"Who is it this time? Faith? Ric? Hell, maybe the Cassadines. It doesn't matter. Anyone stupid enough to snatch Sonny Corinthos' wife out of his own bedroom is …"

"Is what?"

"I don't know, I can't seem to make my head work."

"You'll be fine."

He touched her. Just a passing, casual brush against her arm. His hand was warm. The fingers smooth.

"Sleep." Said simply, softly.

"Don't think that just because I'm complying just this once that I'll take orders." She was half out as she heard him laugh again, a low, comfortable sound, like a teddy bear in childhood. Fuzzy, warm, gentle and somewhere in all that mush a little strong.


	5. Chapter 5

EVIL

Part Five

Bobbie was slightly crazed. What if she was the reason her grandbabies were without their mother again, why Sonny had disappeared? Why Jason had called and installed her at the penthouse to take care of the boys?

But if this was her fault.

If, by warning him, she'd brought this down upon them then she'd never forgive herself. She had to do something, anything.

Including telling Luke… everything.

"That girl caused this mess, Barbra Jean, and on the off chance it isn't one of her schemes, Sonny will find her and get her back."

Her brother's comfort only went so far. He hated her daughter. Always had. Not without reason.

"It's not her fault, Luke. She wouldn't leave her boys."

"She left before."

"She was scared and… it doesn't matter now. Luke," she looked into the eyes so like the father they had run from so young, "I need you to go after her. I know Sonny's men are on top of it but nobody's seen him in days and Jason can't do everything."

"I thought that was why you and Lucas put yourselves under the Corinthos Morgan thumb, to help with the kidios." He looked around the room, taking in the changes to the place since his last visit, looking for objects to mock and hock no doubt.

"Yes, but…Luke, I need you on this."

"Look honey, I just got back. I've spent God knows how long locked in some loony bin and now you want me to go after another loony. I'm still trying to figure out who pinned me."

"I know Luke but you have to find her. And fast, there isn't much time."

"Time for what?"

"The longer she's gone the worse it gets."

"What gets? Darlin' you aren't making any sense."

"Luke, you have to find her."

"I don't have to do anything for that viper."

"For me, Luke."

"This wouldn't be for you, Barbara Jean. It'd be for her or Sonny or those boys but not you."

"It would be for me. It's my fault Luke."

"Your fault another of Sonny's pals nabbed his wife? Or that Sweet Caroline took a walk?"

"My fault that she was taken. You have to listen, he wouldn't have taken her if I hadn't called."

"Called?"

"I …I had a number," she fiddled with Michael's crayons, "I wanted to warn him, Carly was after the past, she wanted to know…I wouldn't tell her but with Sonny and his resources… I wanted to warn him."

"So you called? What number?"

"The number he gave me."

"He gave you a number thirty years ago? Jesus, Barbara."

"I didn't tell you for a reason Luke. I just wanted him to hide things, bury them deeper than we had. To keep it all locked away."

"It's Pandora's fucking box. You told him he had a kid and that she wanted to see him?"

"I told him I had a daughter and based on certain evidence she could come to the conclusion that he was her father and that would be bad. That she had connections that could find him, uncover him."

Luke lurched forward and grabbed her by the shoulders. "What in God's green nightgown were you thinking? He'll destroy us all just to get to that tow headed maniac you gave birth to. He'll take us all down, just like he wanted to before."

"It wasn't like that Luke."

"The hell it wasn't, baby girl. Lover boy was out to put you behind bars. He may have been decent in the sack but he wanted your ass and mine wearing stripes and now, if he's got his hands on you daughter, Corinthos and Morgan are going down too."

He shook his head at her. "You handed him the keys to the city."

"He wouldn't do that, she's not even his, he'll have no power over her."

"Like he'd let that stop him. Caroline wants a father, he'll be a father until he's ruined us. And you let it happen." He released her and walked towards the bar.

"I did not let it happen. I'm trying to stop it. I'm asking for your help. Help me get my daughter away from him before it all comes out."

"Only to save my own ass. That man was your mistake Barbara Jean; I'm still paying for it."

Luke slammed out and the snap of the door was like a crack across her face.


	6. Chapter 6

EVIL

Part Six

Sam was recovering. The trauma with Sonny had caused a hemorrhage in the stitches they'd used to keep her from losing Lila to incompetent cervix. The lost stitches had caused the baby to shift and if God hadn't been on their side she would have lost the baby right there.

But Jason had been there, he'd saved her from Sonny.

She thought back to the look in his eyes, the visceral fear she'd felt. He hadn't been Sonny. He'd been some tortured animal mistaking her for the master who'd kept him chained. She got nauseous again when she thought about it. He'd been unreal. The way he hadn't even seen her, known her.

She leaned over for the bucket beside the bed and did vomit.

"That doesn't sound good."

Jason was beside her, silent. There. There when she needed someone.

"It's better than the alternative."

"Which is?"

"Crying and calling myself a fool." She shook her head. "I saw in Sonny's eyes that night in my truck so much hurt and pain and power to do … whatever, murder I guess. But it was so … small. That night…it was so different Jason. I saw in Sonny this man who had so much in him to go in any of these directions, hurt, hate, love, kindness. But I didn't see that much. I mean I saw just a fraction of what he was capable of and it wasn't that small to me at the time. But in the penthouse. It was everything and nothing, all at once." She realized then that Jason had taken her hand.

"I know you were frightened—"

"It's more than that Jason. I need… I need to not be in the room with Sonny. Ever. I …I don't think I can look at him and not see that…." She shivered.

"But the baby."

"I know Sonny's a good father but I… I don't know that I can commit my child to a lifetime of that, seeing it, just once, I don't think I can see him and not see it."

"Ok, once Sonny's better, we'll talk about it."

"No, Jason. You aren't listening. I won't see Sonny. I can't. Just thinking about it makes me loose me lunch."

"You never seemed to scare that easy before."

"I won't do that to this child, Jason. And I won't let you try and bluff me into it either."

He let go of her hand and she flexed her fingers, trying to shake off the feel of it. She didn't want to think of it.

He left as he'd come, without a sound.


	7. Chapter 7

EVIL

Part Seven

Sonny stared into nothing for another moment. Relived the scream that had come from the woman pregnant with his child. He'd pulled it from her. How, he wasn't sure. Things were a blur, but he knew it. Just like he knew he'd nearly touched Carly that night so long ago when she'd found him.

He shook it off. Felt the beads of slick oil fly from his hair. The slimy filth was everywhere he looked. He couldn't get clean, didn't want to. He tipped his head back, into the sofa and let his eyes start to drift shut. There would be dreams there he knew, but reality was so many nightmares anyway.

The door snapped open and Jason came through calling his name. He rubbed his eyes and began to sit up. His body wanted rest, needed rest, craved it.

"Hey."

"Hey. How are you feeling?"

"I'll be better if I can get out of here." He rubbed his lips and anchored his elbows on his knees.

"Ok, we'll move you to a safe house immediately. Think you can eat?"

"Nah."

Jason left a bag of food from the No Name anyway and went out to arrange for the move. It wasn't necessary to ask why he couldn't just go across the hall and home. He wanted to protect the boys who were probably already bad enough without their parents without having him show up unable to really function. He poked at the steamed vegetables. Jason came back in.

"They're setting it up but… we have an issue."

"Sam. How is the baby?"

"They're ok, bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy."

Sonny's head hit his hands. He'd done it with his own hands, he'd nearly taken the life of his own child and her mother.

"They're fine but they can't put in new stitches and they are worried about the pressure on the remaining ones. Which is most of them. It's just a precaution Sonny."

"Carly."

"Still nothing."

"The boys."

"Are holding their own. Shaken, but having Bobbie so close, and Lucas, helps. Even Luke came by."

"Luke?"

"Max said he left upset. Grumbled all the way to the elevator doors."

"Huh."

"We need to talk about Sam."

"You said she was ok. The baby…"

"Physically they are both fine, healthy. But Sam's a little freaked out. She said she's seen you upset before but that this was too much. She doesn't think she can ever be around you and not it."

"Ok."

"The baby too, Sonny?"

"She'd…"

"That's what she says. Now I think once things get back to normal and you two sit down and work things out she'll realize that she's over reacting. I'll try and calm her down." He kicked a piece of ceramic rubble with the toe of his boot. "We'll work it out."

"Maybe not. Maybe she's right. What I am, it shouldn't be around children. I shouldn't be. It's dangerous."

"What are you talking about, Sonny? You'd never hurt Michael or Morgan." Jason just stared at him. Sonny knew that Sam was right. Only Carly had been able to get him to believe that he could have children, love them, their mother, and be happy. But when had that happiness ever lasted. Every time they turned around it seemed their world was destroyed.


	8. Chapter 8

EVIL

Part Eight

She watched the woman stir as she reached into the closet for something that appealed to the role more. She found a copper suit and a blue camisole to go under the jacket. The brown head next to her continued to moan and shift with more frequent occasion. The eyes finally opened a deep brown.

"Well, the beast finally awakens. I know your head feels like mush after that stuff they've kept you on but when you can wipe that grog from your eyes, peal yourself from that bed, drag your carcass into the shower, don something from that closet, and leave the room we'll talk."

She's slipped back into her shoes while the bleary eyed brunette stared at her to do list.

Marching from that room to the next, she closed the door behind her and heard the men conferring.

"You're certainly not losing your touch. You got her out of there like spit. Slick. How'd you pull it off?"

"Just a few classic tools and a quite engine."

"Oh, come on, you drag us all in like this I want more than your usual James Bond answers."

He sighed, she watched him toss the hair that was currently a russety light brown. "Used the stairs. Scaled down from the roof. Waited on the balcony, chloroformed and then a quick descent down. Really, any one could have done it."

"I've looked at the specs at the building, a straight descent…not possible from their balcony half the apartments on that side have a window right under it."

He sighed again, she heard the weary relish in the pissing contest.

"I rigged a taut line between it and the balcony directly next. Towed out to the center with her strapped on and dropped. Had a small silent waiting and was halfway out of town before they even knew she was gone."

"See slick as spit." She ruffled papers on the large desk and waited for her opening. "Now that you've gotten her here, what do we do with her?"

She caught his face clenching in determination and anger. "We do what should have been done from the start."

"They'll come after her, you know. It'll be worse now than it would have been if—"

"Let them come. I welcome it." His face was tight and fierce, one of those expressions you really don't want to see at the other end of i_any_/i kind of weapon.

"On that note, she's had work done."

"What?" He whirled at her and she got a full on look at his face… nothing new to her. "She's had—"

"I'm up to speed on the head traumas she's sustained, thank you, and the resulting treatments and surgeries. I repeat, she's had work done. She seems unaware, not wholly surprising. The work is crude and imprecise, vague, but it carries baring for her. It won't be hard to reverse but we should find out who put it there and to what exact end." She flipped her shoulder length hair off her cheek.


	9. Chapter 9

EVIL

Part Nine

Bobbie slammed the phone on another of Luke's very angry phone calls. He'd never liked the situation, had fought against it from the beginning. He'd never understand why she'd had to give birth to that baby. If anything for him the possibility of who the father was, was enough to damn it. Years later he'd been so justified when Carly'd come to town to destroy Bobbie's life.

Just like the man he thought might be her father.

But in the end Carly had been a good thing. Carly had become a daughter she was proud of, a woman she could respect and frequently even understand.

Now because of Bobbie's hasty actions, her fears about the past and how it would damage the present, she had lost that. Carly had lost her family and they her. She wanted desperately to fix it but she knew there wasn't much she could do.

There was a knock on the door, Max popped his head in, looked around, and announced, "Mr. Corinthos to see you ma'am."

"Thank you, Max." She watched Sonny enter and look around. "You don't have to be announced in your own home you know."

"Um, this is the boys' home."

"And yours. And Carly's. I know it must be hard to be here and know she's not … I understand what that's like—"

"Bobbie, really, that's not why I'm here. I don't want to do that thing…no."

"Well, Morgan's asleep and Michael is at school. They miss you. I could wake Morgan up. He'd be so happy to see you."

"No. Leave him sleeping."

"You know Sonny, they don't understand. Maybe if you spoke to them… I've been telling them you're not here because you are out looking for Carly. They are ok, but they need you."

"Well, they can't have me Bobbie. Carly is what they need and because of me they'll never have her back. I—" He cut off abruptly and brought a hand to his eyes.

"Sonny, you can't… you can't think this is your fault."

"My brother has taken her, my associates, my enemies in the past. What am I supposed to think Bobbie, who am I supposed to blame, where am I supposed to look," she watched him pause as a tear left his eye and ran quickly down his face, "for my wife?" Another and then another followed.


	10. Chapter 10

EVIL

Part Ten

Luke was going in circles. Trudging through Miami was not digging up any old connections to John. He was getting annoyed. None of his old contacts, and precious few were still around, remembered him well and none had seen him since the night Luke'd beaten him all the way down the pier.

It had been after he'd caught him with Bobbie, off the clock and naked. He'd told her and told her that he was just using her. Why, he hadn't been sure until later, but she was bowled over by his pretty face, his cultured voice and the fact that he didn't treat her like a street walker.

He'd just found out what the man was after. He wanted to bust the deal Luke was making with the Cubans and toss Luke in prison for it.

Thank God the world had gotten over being that annoying. Granted it was more fun to run around when there were more rules to break. Luke paused a moment in his rifling of a government jockey's desk to ponder which era held more allure and adventure.

Definitely the previous. Now everything was done by computer. Online this, world wide web that.

And no one had a flair or imagination for disguises. The bunch of putzes.

Then it occurred to him, if John had been government he would have moved up in the world, out of the rinky customs office. Given the times they might have even moved him to a different branch of the government all together.

He knew who he had to call.


	11. Chapter 11

EVIL

Part Eleven

It had taken a few days but Carly had managed to finally get herself to the large dressing room of the well-appointed suite she'd been ensconced in. It had been hard not to go completely mad but she thought they were slipping relaxers into the food. She wasn't too upset about it, probably in part because she was constantly doped.

Either that or something had happened to her. Her mind was mush. Her body was mush. She felt like baby food.

But baby food who had showered. She'd forced herself into a charming but low pair of heels and a simple jersey mock-wrap-around dress in a cranberry. She didn't have the energy to do her hair so it fell in soft brown curls around her head.

Sitting on the bed she summoned all the faces she had as reasons to get out of there as soon as she could. She took a deep breath and pushed herself off the rumpled covers and toward the door. She tried to walk with confidence, to be sure she was going to get out of wherever they had put her because she was Mrs. Sonny Fucking Corinthos and a bitch in her own right.

She was walking like she was not going to fall over by the time she turned the knob and plowed into the next equally bright and well decorated room. It was very French provincial she noticed. A room Amanda Barrington would have approved of.

"Ah, at last," the woman she'd seen that once in her room said. "Have a seat." She pulled out a desk chair and Carly sat, grateful to have an excuse. "Now we can get started."

"On what? The terms of my release?"

"No dear, your training."

She froze. "Training?"

"Yes, you leave a great deal to be desired but most do. I'm very picky." The woman tugged at her Chanel suit. It was a really nice suit. She flipped her deep red hair and sat on the desk crossing her legs in a very demure way.

"We're going to trun you into a lady—"

"Uh-huh, no way. I did the lady of the manor act once and it sucked. What we are going to do is set a ransom and send me home to my family."

"That's not possible, Caroline," the kind, teddy bear voice said from behind her, still gentle and reassuring.

"I warned you. I do not take orders, you are not keeping me here."

"These aren't orders." He was so calm it was creeping her out but she was too weak to even push out of the chair. "It's the way it is. Right now you don't have a choice. You stay here. It can be pleasant, you can learn things, enjoy the villa, or we can keep you in your rooms, isolated, alone. It's not really a choice. The other one will be much harder."

The way he looked into her eyes was so understanding, so sympathetic but not weak. It was oddly comforting but she didn't like that sensation, didn't want to give into it.

"If I play along, let you teach me, behave, can I call my family?"

"There will be no contact."

She stomach turned. Sonny, the boys. "Will you answer my questions?"

"Where possible."

"Ok, why did you take me? Who do you work for? What do they want?"

He smiled and the woman moved so he could crouch in her place on the desk. "Well," he wove his fingers together, "it's a start. I took you because it recently came to my attention that I'm your father. I can't tell you yet who I work for. You have to prove I can trust you first. They mostly want world peace..." he angled his head back and forth, "their way."

Her father had found her. And taken her from everything.

"You're my dad?"

"Yes."

"And you thought this," she opened her hands up to the room, "was a better meet-your-pops present then say… a week in Disneyland?"


	12. Chapter 12

EVIL

Part Twelve

Jason was giving new meaning to running around like a chicken without a head.

He was trying to reassure everyone. Bobbie, Michael, Morgan, Sonny, Sam. He had no time for his own doubts.

There was no sign of Carly.

Ric even seemed to be clean. Not just clean but a pain in the ass. He was constantly at Jason about what Sonny did with his wife. Kept saying he must have gotten tired of trying to please both his wife and his mistress and dumped Carly in a river with a brand new pair of shoes.

Mac was doing what he could.

Max and the boys were getting to the point where Operation: Find Carly was routine. They'd looked everywhere, checked with every associate, every source. He'd had Stan going through anything he could get his hands on to find a hint of government or private sting.

And roads lead to nothing.

Just emptiness.

Bogus leads were everywhere. No snitch wanted to look Jason Morgan in the face and say nothing. So they made stuff up or quoted the rampant rumors that Mrs. Corinthos had gone back to her on again off again squeeze, Alcazar.

But she hadn't and if Lorenzo had taken her there was no sign of it. He hadn't made a step toward her yet. He'd had men of his own looking for her as well. He'd made similar assumptions as everyone else.

Maybe Sonny snapped. Maybe Sonny killed her. Maybe one of his associates did.

People don't just disappear.

Jason had to find her.


	13. Chapter 13

EVIL

Part Thirteen

Sonny was surrounded. The calm yellow walls of the safe house were gray and grimy with the crude oil. He felt it on his face, tried to scratch through it to his suffocating skin.

The confines of the spacious rooms pulled at his throat, choked him. He had to get out.

He left and was enveloped by the town's verdant green of late summer but the slick cast moved with him, slipping over blade by blade, leaving it black that seeped into the earth and then a trail of grimy sludge.

He broke out into a run pounding down the road to the place of whiteness.

He fell over the bench and collapsed in a heap at the foot of her grave. Needing her grace.

"Lily. Lily, find my wife. Find her, take her to heaven, show her our son. Make her happy there."

He stayed, hiding behind the stone, afraid of the shadows, the graves of men and women he felt responsible for.

He saw his dirty fingerprints on Lily's head marker and recoiled. He looked up, "I'm sorry."

Then she was there before him. Her beauty, her goodness. But on her white gown there were his handprints, the black oil and grease all over the hem. The hem of an angel tugged by dirty, unclean hands.

"No," he said, and tried to wipe them off only smearing more and more of the ooze all over her until she was covered. Then it wasn't Lily, it was Carly, coated in the disease, the oil and choking, clawing to be free of it. "i_No,_/i," he screamed in terror.

There was a hand on his shoulder and he whipped around.

Father Coates stood watching him, concern, worry on his face. "Are you all right?"

Sonny just stared for a moment and then looked back to his ruined wives.

She was gone. It was all gone. But it had only pulled back for a moment, the oil, sunk into the earth and out of sight for now. In a minute it would be back.

"I heard about your wife. I've come by many times to sit and pray with you. Your mother in-law is, as always, a lovely hostess."

"I…" he continued to stare at the spot he'd seen them standing in, expecting there to be oily footprints leading down the path.

"You seemed troubled. I'd like to help."


	14. Chapter 14

EVIL

Part Fourteen

Michael was angry, was confused. He wanted to beat up his uncle Lucas and Grandma. They weren't supposed to be here. They were supposed to be at the Brownstone. Mommy was supposed to be home. But she wasn't.

He wanted to know what he'd done wrong to make her go. He knew it was because of him she'd come home to Daddy, because of him and his plan, and Morgan. So it must be because of him that she left.

It hadn't been Daddy. He'd seen them kissing. He'd seen his mother take his father's hand in the park, in the kitchen, at Kelly's. Just like before.

He wanted to kill Ric. That bad man who'd taken her before. And Lorenzo, the one she'd been with when she and Daddy were mad.

He would too, if Leticia would stop looking at him like that. Like she knew. Like she would stop him, like if he didn't get in line fast, mister, he was going to bed without dessert and no video or Discman until he walked straight.

So he wasn't mean to Grandma Bobbie, he let Uncle Lucas play with him, and he stayed in the penthouse.

He was starting to hate Leticia too.


	15. Chapter 15

EVIL

Part Fifteen

"I said I'm working on it, Bobbie. Jesus, I'm not Mighty Mouse."

"Well, work faster. Things are getting bad here," Bobbie demanded quietly into the phone's receiver.

"How so?"

"Michael is understandably angry at everyone, Morgan isn't sleeping well, Sam is still in the hospital, Jason's search is going nowhere, Ric and Lorenzo get more brutal with him everyday, and…." she gnawed her lip. "Sonny's in a bad way, Luke."

"What he won't eat his spinach, let's you cook in his kitchen?"

"No, Luke. He came by the other day. Wouldn't see the boys, went out of his way to avoid them and… he said…he said he blames himself for Carly going missing."

"And what did you say."

"Nothing."

"What?"

"Well, I couldn't just blurt out that I thought it was mine. And I thought about telling him about John but… what if I'm wrong, Luke, and one of Sonny's associates really does have Carly and we stopped looking there? I …I'm not ready to take that chance. Just find John. Find Carly and get her back here."

"Those are tall orders, Barbara Jean."

"I know. Luke, would it be too much to ask you to pray?"


	16. Chapter 16

EVIL

Part Sixteen

"Why do you want to know this?"

"Because you're my daughter and I missed the first half of your life."

"Well, when I was little it was Jell-O, the green stuff, and macaroni and cheese."

"And now?"

"Anything Sonny makes. And frozen pizza and chocolate donuts and all the stuff that's bad for you that Sonny refuses to make."

"This Sonny…"

"Is my husband."

"I know but… has he ever…nah."

"What?"

"I just wondered if you ever convinced him to eat frozen pizza."

She laughed. Remembering the time, thinking about the man who would ask. "Yes, actually." She couldn't stop smiling.

"You mentioned Disneyland, have you ever been?"

She took a bite of something she couldn't name but Sonny could and said, "Disneyland, no. Disneyworld, yes." He arched a brow at her. "I was thirteen and I ran away from home with my best friend, Carly. We snuck in, got caught, and were banned forever."

"And did you and Carly ever go back?"

"No, she died and I just never wanted to. Michael would love to I bet, but Morgan's still a little young and…well, it wouldn't be easy for Sonny."

She worried that he would ask why, she didn't want to tell him that a day at an amusement park was hell on personal security.

"Ok, next," he stole a julienned carrot off her plate and ate it, "Have you ever…"

"You know, there's this game I played when I was a kid. You all start with all your fingers and try and get other people down to zero. You say, 'Never ever have I ever' something and if someone in the group has they have to put a finger down."

"Oh, I like it. Let's play," he popped out his fingers. "Never ever have I ever…liked Piccaso. Looks like scribbles."

"Hahaha, no, something more like, never ever have I ever dressed as a girl."

She watched his face not change a hair as he sucked a finger into his palm.

"My father's a transvestite?"

"No, has to do with the job, sometimes people don't want to see me, sometimes I don't want to be seen."

"Ok. Your turn."

"Ok, never ever have I ever played this game before."

"No, try again," she giggled.

"Never ever have I ever eaten celery and liked it."

"Uh-huh, you're aren't playing right," she said through laughter.

"Never ever have I ever played with dancing ex-president dolls."

She laughed harder, "what?"

"Ok, no. Never ever have I ever worn a Speedo."

She laughed even more, secretly glad for the last piece of information.

"Never ever have I ever danced naked in the rain."

"Ewwwww," she squealed. No girl wants to know that one way or the other about her father. Even if he was as handsome as the man at the table with her.

"Never ever have I ever actually used soap behind my ears."

"Neither has my son." And it was a sobering thought.

"Can't blame the kid, he's smart. No one even sees back there. Slosh a little water and you're good to go."

She looked sadly down at her plate, forking a piece of lamb a bit to the left, a bit to the right.

"Seriously, never ever have I ever been…brainwashed."

"That's not seriously. Nobody gets brainwashed except in movies and spy novels and on TV."

"So you've never been brainwashed?" He took another carrot.

"No. Of course not."

"And no one you know has been either?"

"Well… actually. My cousin Lucky. But he's a Spencer so he doesn't count; they are special."

"You're a Spencer."

"Wrong. My mother is a Spencer. Her brother is a Spencer. Lucky, Lulu, Lucas. Me, I'm the family relation nobody likes to talk about."

"I don't believe that. I bet Bobbie is very proud of you."

"Bobbie, maybe, when I'm not doing something she disapproves of so much she feels the need to tell me four different ways."

"You know I hate to say this but you remind me of Luke."

"You know Luke?"

"Yeah, he hates me."

"You're in good company. He hates me too."

"That has nothing to do with you. If he suspected even a little that you might be my daughter… Besides, is there anyone he likes?"

"Laura," Carly answered without thought.

"I never met her. She must be quite a woman to tame Luke."

"Eh, mostly she was annoying."

"So, if you weren't brainwashed, were you ever hypnotized?"

"Ha. No. I mean we pretended as kids, all kids do. Someone chants over your body and you count backwards and you pretend you're six and catching your parents burying a body in the back yard. That stuff is hooey."

"Oh, ye of little faith."

"Come on." She couldn't believe someone as put together as this man could fall for crap.

"I tell you what. You let our girl put you under, or at least try, and then you tell me it's hooey."

"You got a deal."


	17. Chapter 17

EVIL

Part Seventeen

She flicked lint off the shoulder of her suit and turned back to the men sitting opposite her. "Well, I said it was crude but effective. The simple suggestion that she was wrong and she didn't love Sonny Corinthos. From the file provided we can see she grappled with it and even went so far as to have an affair. There's a second addendum to the bits floating in there. It's that she loves this Lorenzo Alcazar man. She fought that too. My guess is because it was crude, because her emotions run so strongly the other way it did not set in right away. The suggestions needed a reason to take hold, a rationality. She had to like Lorenzo for something in his own right, she had to have something against Sonny before it would take true effect."

"And now."

"I'm pretty sure I've wiped what was left out. I will need to get back in a few times. I hate to say it but your plan wasn't stellar here, pal. One time access and with the tape you've prepared she's going to think she just fell asleep. It means drugging her again and going in without permission."

"I don't like it," he protested as she knew he would. "You saw how drained she was after that."

"Yes, and those sessions were very unproductive."

Arwen spoke up. "Look we've got her here, we've got her under. Why don't we just prepare a different tape?"

"You may be in charge, sir, and she maybe your daughter but I—"

"Fine, Elise, do it."

"Yes, sir. If you say so, sir."

"What?" He was impatient with her censure.

"Since you've decided to train her, why not…tell her the truth. Novel concept."

He sighed and she saw the strain. "Best prep the other tape. I may wimp out."

"Ok, John." She turned to go. "Come on Arwen." She fought the urge to tweak his graying goatee.

When they were in the other room she looked at him and said, "How's your hero-worship taking all his bad calls?"

"Mostly it's in denial. He's not used to this whole kid thing yet."

"But—"

"Yeah, I know, but he didn't know about Caroline until that chippy from Miami called the line. Who'da thunk she'd hang onto that number so long?"

"She loved him, and it was the only connection she had to the father of a child she missed."

"Leave it to the head-shrinker to make it all mushy. Maybe she just wanted to get laid."

She rolled her eyes and returned to the digital screen to edit the tape of Caroline's hypnosis. "You are such a male."

"Care to feel just how male?"


	18. Chapter 18

EVIL

Part Eighteen

Luke, in his favorite wig and bad ass sunglasses, read the racing sheets amid the elderly and infirm at the track. Damn retirement communities. They were ruining the sport.

He was tired of hearing about hearing aid batteries and lumbago and Erma's grandson Louis. The track used to be such a hang out. Now it was foggies.

If he'd realized what a bunch of whining old folks there were at the races these days he'd have met his contact elsewhere. Too late.

He couldn't bail on the deal because the met was unhip. Bobbie was depending on him too much and, if this little adventure meant he got an excuse to put i_John_/i behind bars, he welcomed it.

"Pryne," the man said as he sat a row back and several seats over.

"Rouster," Luke returned. There were some sounds like those of tape ripping and a knife slicing into packaging. The contact made considering sounds. "Time is of the essence."

"Well, I'm going to need some of it. He won't be easy to track but I've got a couple of ideas. Stay available."

And while his contact slipped back into the slowly moving throng of old people Luke sucked on his cigar. Oh, he'd be available. The sooner this mystery solvey-solved the sooner he could figure out his own.


	19. Chapter 19

EVIL

Part Nineteen

Bobbie woke in the middle of the night and went to kill some time by checking on the kids. Lucas was out with one sock in his hand, the other hand held his Gameboy. She took both and went to check Michael.

The boy was tucked neatly in bed which was odd. She checked him to make sure he wasn't faking. He had taken to passive-aggressive behaviors. She, Leticia, and Jason were worried. His hair was unbelievably unmussed but he was genuinely asleep. She shrugged and headed to Morgan's room.

The door was open and there was Sonny, his suit was rumpled his face, unshaven, his eyes, even with the distance looked haunted and in pain. But he stood over his son, stroking the child's small head. Bobbie brought a hand to her mouth, trying to stifle the cry she knew was coming.

She knew he would leave if she caught him. So she watched as long as she dared and went silently back to her room.


	20. Chapter 20

EVIL

Part Twenty

She opened her eyes and was again in her room. She rolled over. Well-rested but lazy.

She started when she saw her father and rushed a hand to her rapidly beating heart. "You could kill someone like that."

"Yeah," he said and waited.

He was sitting in a plush armchair next to the bed. He was leaned against the back and had one leg over the other. It reminded her of Sonny and the wave of missing him worrying for him hit her again.

"So, I guess, I fell asleep, huh?"

"No," he said, sitting forward and putting his elbows on his knees. It was a very fatherly position and he looked like he was going to give her "the talk." She wondered if maybe now was a good time to tell him she knew about the birds and the bees. Just look at her kids. No denying they existed.

"Ok, I know you're new to this whole father thing but, really I—"

"You'd been under before."

"What?"

"Well, not the same way but, when we put you under you told us about having your mind altered."

"I change my mind a lot. It's allowed."

"No, this was not by choice. Someone went into your head and changed things for you."

"What?"

"Somebody told you that you didn't love your husband, and you loved this guy Lorenzo Alcazar."

"That's crazy. I love Sonny. So obviously, if somebody told me that I didn't listen."

"Then why leave Sonny for Lorenzo, why divorce him, why have an affair with a man who held you hostage, terrorized your husband, and hurt your family."

"How do you know those things?"

"I have connections. Some of the details you filled in while you were under." He wouldn't look at her.

"So you just tripped over this information while trying to make me bark like a duck?"

"Quack," he said without raising his eyes.

"Whatever," she railroaded on. "You went in there for a reason, didn't you? To maybe put in some things yourself like, 'You don't want to go home Carly. You love your father Carly. Trust him unconditionally, Carly.'"

"Caroline," he said, calmly rising to stand next to her.

"Carly," she returned gruffly getting to her feet. "Get the hell out."

She watched him stand there, looking at his feet. Furious that he looked sad, hurt, when he was the one who had been wrong, she marched to the door, threw it open and pointed. "Out," she ordered.

And he went, allowing her to slam the door at his back.

It wasn't fair. He kidnaps her, keeps her from her children and makes her feel like a heel for kicking him out. The dirty rotten bastard was good.

He was also definitely her father and she would have to think of a way to play him like he played her.


	21. Chapter 21

EVIL

Part Twenty-One

Lorenzo took a sip of a summer punch and looked up to the sun. It was waning earlier than he was used to. Summers in one place, in Port Charles, were nothing like those he'd spent abroad, sailing in his yacht, visiting all over Europe, South America, Africa. Seeing the world. But he'd stayed to see Carly.

He hadn't had so much as a glimpse of her in weeks. He'd seen her, edges of her as she walked by with Corinthos, her car, her bodyguards warning him away from Kelly's or The Cellar. But since she'd disappeared, since Corinthos had killed her for telling him she was leaving him and going back to the man that really loved her, Lorenzo Alcazar, his world had been gray.

Without light, without her everything was bleak and dull. Even his summer punch.

"Lorenzo Alcazar?"

"Yes," he said turning. He saw a vague impression of a face and a hand coming towards him then all was not just gray and bleak, but black.

He came to a little fuzzy headed and upright.

"Good, I didn't want to have to start without you."

It was then he realized he was tied to the chair on which he sat.


	22. Chapter 22

EVIL

Part Twenty-Two

"Sir, I just got confirmation that Faith Roscoe is not to be touched."

"Hmm," the man with the brownish-red hair and the fire in his eyes paced before him, "too bad. I would have enjoyed getting this over with but it looks like your partner won't be able to join us."

He sat on the edge of the metal table behind him. The table contained shiny objecst he couldn't make out through the blurred vision caused by his swollen eyes.

"My associate is affective, yes?" The man was svelte and muscular and a little above average height. His brown hair falling into his eyes when he leaned over to get in his face. "I'm affective too. Care to see?"

A fist plowed into his solar plexus.

"I know that wasn't sporting of me but it's not every sporting to mess with people's minds. Tends to rile me a bit." He hooked his left into Lorenzo's cheek. "Don't know why. Maybe it's that helplessness. Maybe it's that the one place we are truly free is our own minds. I've never been big on impingement of freedom." He jabbed. "Ah the irony," he pushed the chair back against something so that Lorenzo's head lolled back and he stared up into the man's face, "but then you wouldn't appreciate that." He left his field of vision and said, "I'll take the nine gauge."

There was a clink of metal and then he was back.

"My daughter would get it. She'd get why I was about to do this as well. So that she'll never have to."

There was pain; slicing and blinding and gouging and too hard to be ignored. When he was close, when his mind was nearly so over loaded it began to shut it out, the pain receded. Just enough.

Only to start again.

He'd begged for mercy, for death, for Carly to come and take him to heaven with her. But no one had come, nothing had changed but the pain. The place, the amount, the duration. But always there. Always excruciating. All he could feel.


	23. Chapter 23

EVIL

Part Twenty-Three

"What do you mean he's disappeared?" Sonny looked at Jason like he was out of his mind. Sonny had been out of his mind since he'd returned to find his wife gone.

"I mean Lorenzo Alcazar just vanished. Like Carly. Just there one second and gone the next."

"Well, did he go to where he stashed Carly?"

"I don't know. Nobody knows."

The door burst open and in waltzed Ric. "I can't believe you thought you'd get away with it, Sonny."

"Damn it, Lansing this is a private property. Leave."

"No, I don't think so, Jason, unless of course you and Sonny want to confess to killing Carly Corinthos and Lorenzo Alcazar."

"Uh…no."

"Well, then I'll just have to take you downtown."

"For?"

"As the chief suspects in the murders of Carly Corinthos and Lorenzo Alcazar. Come on Jason, keep up."

"Do you have bodies, proof at all that they are dead?"

"No, you and Sonny destroyed the bodies."

"Jesus, Ric. When are you going to remember you are not a cop?"

"Excuse me?"

"Well, see Ric, what Jason's trying to say is that cops gather this stuff called evidence, they talk to witnesses and find bodies, they make sure that there has actually been a murder before they arrest somebody, not the DA. The DA takes all that evidence presents it to a judge and jury and _they_ decide if he's guilty." Sonny was rallying for the grand cause of sticking it to Ric, another man he'd suspected of taking his wife, though this time he was clean.

"Thank you for that lovely overview of the justice system. I've got it thanks. I'm personally overseeing this case to make sure nobody screws it up."

"The person screwing it up is you, Ric," Jason said.

"What case anyway? Is Alcazar even missing?"

"Yes, his niece filed the report thirty minutes ago."

"Ah, so he's been missing for twenty-four hours and thirty minutes."

"Well…"

"What, Ric? How long has he been missing," asked Sonny.

"The last person to see him alive was a waitress on the terrace at the Grille. He never paid his bill."

"My guess is that's because he has a running tab there."

"How do you know that?"

"Everybody knows that. Everybody has one, Ric. Even me," Jason said.

"Well, he didn't tip her either and he's a very nice tipper."

"Speaking from experience?"

"How long ago? How long ago did he stiff a waitress?"

"About eighteen hours." The other two raised a ruckus with disbelieving exasperation. "But seeing as you've made attempts on his life in past, as have others, I sped up the process."

"What's that word, lawyers like to it throw around the PCPD like it's confetti?"

"Alexis' favorite?"

"Yeah," Sonny said as Ric commented that Alexis would never be Sonny's lawyer again.

"Harassment." Jason answered Sonny pointedly in Ric's direction.

"Harassment, yeah, that's it. Why don't you stop harassing me on my private property, let the cops do their job, and maybe you'll actually find my wife. But you know, what's a mother? Right, Ric? Up next to the missing Alcazar?"

"Wherever they are Sonny, at the bottom of the lake, in tiny pieces mixed in with a shipment of coffee, or somewhere tropical sucking down margaritas you can bet they are together."

Sonny lunged at Ric's throat. The world dropping rapidly into the darkness around him his hands wanted to grab, strangle, his fists to fly.

Jason reached out to hold Sonny back the second instant after the urge hit.

"Oh, yes, hold him back, Jason," Ric taunted from the door. "Wouldn't want to toss him in jail where he belongs." He went and the oil slithered after him.


	24. Chapter 24

EVIL

Part Twenty-Four

Luke received a phone call and was ready when his contact told him to be ready. All in black and sitting in his room ready to bust a groove and commit some good old B&E.

"Spencer," he heard the man from the race tracks say and turned.

Seeing the squatted black outline against the nearly black night he saluted and watched the masked figure wander into his room.

Getting a look at the tightly appareled he realized he was a she.

She took off the ski-mask and a mass of long curly brown hair sprung out.

"Oh," Luke shivered dramatically, "a girl spy." He rubbed his hands together.

"Oh," she returned with a saucy simper and a cocked hip, "a smart ass."

"Bad ass, baby, bad ass." He heaved a sigh, big smile on his face.

"So where do we start?"

"Well," she pulled out a set of floor plans from her bosom and began to explain. Soon they were both out in the night, breaking the law and feeling good.


	25. Chapter 25

EVIL

Part Twenty-Five

"John," Arwen said and he looked up at the screen again.

"Feeling restless." He disengaged the locks so she could leave her room to pace in the rest of the apartment. "Think she knows we have him here?"

"No, I think she misses her family and wants to go home."

"You're starting to sound like Elise."

"Elise thinks she's going to do well, despite her issues following orders."

"She will be good."

"Better than you."

"Ouch, Arwen."

"I've always said there was something to genetics."

"Let's not forget who else's genes she shares."

"But he's her uncle so they are farther removed."

"Not far enough."

"It has to be the only thing I've ever known you to turn your back to."

"Only the first."

"The second?"

"It's all evil. What does it matter?" John, disgusted with his choices, knowing he'd made them and would stick by them, turned to intercept his restless offspring in the parlor of her suite, leaving Arwen to think what he wanted.


	26. Chapter 26

EVIL

Part Twenty-Six

Sam winced, Lila had been banging around in her belly all day.

"Give it a rest kid. Jason will be by later. He's just busy. He's got to find Carly."

She often wondered why Jason was so attached to Carly. What kind of bond was strong enough for him to put up with her? Granted Jason had also been very kind to her when she didn't really merit it. Maybe he just liked bad people.

The door to her room opened. A dark man with a goatee entered, his hair unstyled, and a tad raggy on top. He wore a priest's collar and she was instantly on edge. Cops and priests, hated both of them. Cops seemed always to want to her punished. Priests always made her feel like she should be.

"Hello, you must be Samantha. Ms. McCall, I'm Father Coates. How are you feeling?" He was waiting on the edge of the room to be welcomed.

"A little like a football actually," she said, wary of him and any incoming feelings of guilt. There they were. The guilt over her brother, family. Next piled in the guilt of not taking good enough care of the baby, not knowing how too. Hard up behind that was telling Jason Sonny could never come near them. She really hated priests. They didn't even say anything and they made you feel like scum.

"Haha," he laughed nicely, "lots of mothers have expressed that very thought to me over the years."

She joined his mirth, leery. "Known many, huh?"

"Yes, in my line of work. Which leads me to why I've come." He motioned a hand at the chair next to the bed. She nodded. He sat. "I've been anxious to speak with both you and Mr. Corinthos about the child and—"

"Look Father, I know it's an unusual situation and that it has to be uncomfortable for you at church knowing that, well, Sonny and Carly's… I can imagine for a man of God and all—"

"Ms. McCall, I think I know where you're going and I want to assure you that you have nothing to fear. God teaches his children not to judge their fellow man, or woman. It is for Him alone to say, to judge, to condemn or exalt those worthy."

Sam couldn't help the snort. "No offense Father, but everybody judges people like me."

"No, Ms. McCall. You may feel the judgment of your own heart, your own conscience—many do, many speak with a much more damning tone than is ever warranted—but there are those in God's flock who reserve that right as God's. There are those who fall to temptation and judge another, but it is not their thoughts that matter, but those of the Lord."

"What about that whole eye for an eye bit?"

"Punishment is God's to meet out. It is not for us to heap upon ourselves—thought there are those who do in gross excess."

She was silent.

"I came today, Ms. McCall, because I was hopping to offer a spot of hope and joy in this terrible time for the family."

"Family?"

"The Corinthos family. This child makes you a part of that and in this time of tragedy I may be able to bring some joy. I'm sure your pregnancy gives you joy."

"It does. I love this little girl."

"I know. As does God. God loves her too, wants to care for her and keep her as he does all his sheep." Sam had ideas about God's love for his sheep.

"Mr. Corinthos is Catholic, are you as well?"

"Ah, Father, I… I'm not really anything."

"Well, then would you have an issue having the child baptized in the father's faith as her siblings have been before her?"

"I… Did Sonny ask you to come?"

"No, I'm afraid he's still overcome with grief for the situation."

"I… you see, Sonny, well, I don't…"

"Ms. McCall, in the vows I took I swore to keep strict council as a confessor, as anyone's confessor, a member of my church, any church, or not. If you have need of one."

"So anything I tell you, you can't tell anybody else under punishment of God?"

He smiled, "God would take it into account in my judgment as he does all things."

She took a deep breath. The only person she could talk to had spent the last weeks extolling Sonny's virtues to change her mind. It was worth a shot. "You said Sonny's not taking Carly's disappearance well. You're right; he's gone over the edge. He's… I don't feel safe with him, just the thought. I saw all this pain and terror in his eyes. He didn't even know me. He grabbed me. Jason had to pry him off. How can I let that around my child? How can I protect her from that? I love her too much for her to feel towards her father the fear I feel."

"That is hard. Together, with God to guide us we may find an answer."


	27. Chapter 27

EVIL

Part Twenty-Seven

Luke padded through the room in his soft soled shoes. Reaching the book shelves he began to feel for the button his companion had told him would be there. He felt her slink into the room as well.

"It's not here," he said over his shoulder. "Are you sure it's this shelf?"

"No. It's this one." He looked up and straight into the slight fist as it met the spot just between his eyes. The world was suddenly gone. So was Luke, he didn't miss it.


	28. Chapter 28

EVIL

Part Twenty-Eight

Bobbie opened the door. "Sonny, oh thank you for coming." She ushered him in, touching him, just like her daughter.

"I don't have a lot of time, Bobbie." Michael would be home from school soon.

"I know, I understand. What I have to say might change that. I… should have said something before but I was afraid I was wrong. But," he watched her look at the phone. "I'm not. I'm sorry Sonny. It's my fault. It's my fault Carly's gone."

He went to stop her.

"No, it is. I called her father." Her hands were on her face. "I called the man she's going to think is her father. I told him she was looking into the past and she'd see… she'd know about him. It was dangerous. He … I wanted to warn him so he could protect himself. Hide what evidence was left, to keep Carly and himself safe."

"You went to all that trouble to keep Carly from finding the truth? Why not just tell her? She wouldn't have gone looking if you told her he was dangerous."

"Yes, she would have. I had to give her something. Little enough so that she'd try but give up."

"Carly doesn't give up."

"God, I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"Where's she? Where is he? Where's my wife?"

"I don't know. Sonny, I don't. I sent Luke after him. I sent Luke to find him and get Carly. But I didn't tell you because what if I was wrong? What if he hadn't taken her? I didn't want you and Jason to stop looking."

His head was swimming, he needed Carly. The light to shine through the dark, make the spinning stop, change its direction, make him feel safe within it.

"So, why tell me now."

"Luke hasn't called. I'm worried. If he went missing… it means I was right. John has Carly and he won't give her back. It means he did to Luke what I stopped him from doing almost thirty years ago."


	29. Chapter 29

EVIL

Part Twenty-Nine

"Eunice?"

"I know it's part of the game but, God, I hate that name."

"It grows on you."

"Like a fungus." She paused, thought of him, missed him, loved him, their children. Faces parading through her head.

"Fungi are actually quite amazing."

She shivered. "No thank you."

"All right. Come with me. There's something for you to see."

He was the same but, less warm. He seemed almost deflated. "Dad? Are you …?"

He caressed her cheek, something he hadn't done since that light hand on her arm. He'd helped her train, shown her physically how to do much she'd been told to learn but unnecessary touch hadn't played into it.

"You have no idea how much that means to me. Come."


	30. Chapter 30

EVIL

Part Thirty

She stood, rooted to the spot. It was Luke. She took it more on instinct that on observation. The man before her was too bruised, too bloody, too swollen and beat to look like anyone real.

"Luke?"

"Yes. No warm words of greeting for your niece, Spencer? Your manners always were rusty."

Luke hocked bloody spittle at John.

"Lovely." He wiped at his face.

Turning to her he said, "I told you someday you'd have to make a choice, Caroline. This is it. You can stay or you can go. The consequences will fall either way. I'll leave you to your decision." He took her shoulders and kissed her forehead.

Her eyes never left the bloody man before her.

She did not see her mother's brother. She saw the blood, the gore, the damaged, and she saw Sonny.

She saw her husband, that man she'd fought tooth and nail and soul to love, to keep, tied to a chair and his body tortured raw. Bleeding out of his brow, the place under his eye where the bone of his skull began again, his brown eyes barely visible because of the swelling. His sides exposed and bruised so badly he'd be pissing blood for a week.

She saw her sons' seeing him stitched up and knowing what the cause had been.

She saw her father putting Sonny behind bars, his face as she betrayed him again. She saw the faces of their children as they spoke to their father through meshed glass. She saw the hell she'd make them live through. There'd be no escape for any of them.

She spun to the desk behind her, grabbed a pen and scrawled quickly her order, her wish, her last word. She crumpled the piece of paper in her fist and turned to deck Luke with it. The connection made his head snap and her arm ache at the abuse.

She stuffed the balled paper in his pant pocket.

Shaking the pain from her hand she said, "I bet you know what that was for."

She marched out of the room, leaving Luke. Her father would stick to his word, his decision. Her choice. Luke would go back to Port Charles without her. He would tell Bobbie, Sonny, Michael, Morgan, Jason, the town that she'd chosen this.


	31. Chapter 31

EVIL

Part Thirty-one

"I know."

"How could you?"

"It's not really a choice. Love. It takes that away." He reached out to her. Her father wanted to comfort the pain he'd thrust upon her.

"I don't love you, Father."

"You don't have to. My love is what I need. My…choice." He left himself open to her, offering the comfort still, even as she turned and walked away.


	32. Chapter 32

EVIL

Part Thirty-Two

Sonny opened the door to Luke's partially demolished face.

"Thanks," Luke said, as testy as his battered body would let him be.

"No problem," Sonny answered. "Any time you need someone to pull you out of a gutter."

"I was not in a gutter. I was being held to the concrete bosom of Miami."

"Yeah, that's what Roy said."

Luke ambled up to the bar and downed an amount of scotch then poured another which he held out to Sonny. "Drink it ex-partner. You're gonna want it."

Sonny snapped out his arm and sent the glass shattering against the fireplace.

"Ok, be pissy. It's not going to improve the news any."

"Where's my wife?" Sonny screamed out his demand not able to look at Luke but only at the oil slipping out of Luke's footprints on the floor.

"Where I left her, I assume."

Sonny charged up and put Luke against the wall, his already sore body was not thrilled with the treatment and slashed out as well. In each other's fisted grasp they growled.

"She ain't coming home, man. She made her choice and it was Daddy dearest, not you, not Barbara Jean, not her boys."

They didn't just release each other, they each threw the other away and paced in different directions.

"How could you leave her?"

"She left us, man. And just to make her point she punched me, threw some trash at me too." He tossed out the bit of wrinkled paper. It landed at Sonny's feet. "Hell of a punch. Then again I'd been pretty tenderized when she came in.

Sonny picked up the slip and flattened it out and was spellbound by the single word.

_LIVE_

In black letters that started to ooze, he tried to wipe the encroaching grease away but smeared it, making the curious word hard to read.

"Sonny," Jason's voice came from the door, not reaching him. Luke filled him in and Jason looked at the piece of paper still holding Sonny's attention. The word was upside-down.

"E-V-I-L?"

"You dyslexic boy. Live. The word is live."

"She wants Sonny to live?"

"Funny way of showing it."

Jason, again, taking a look at Sonny's face.

Half hearing, Sonny thought, how could he live without her?

Because he loved her, he would try.

***

There was a sequel to this story, _LIVE_, which was written and posted on S&C sites years ago but never here. It may be a month or more before I am able to locate it and upload it, however that is my intention. I was greaty surprised by attention this story recieved. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy the sequel.

Also, it has recently come to my attention that I never posted the rest of the House of Cards series, which includes _Humpty Dumpty, _here. I will be recitfying that soon.


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